Hochherr Family Collection

The Hochherr family can trace its origins to fifteenth-century Speyer. The Hochherr family members were cobblers and tailors until Levi Hochherr (1838-1917) established a family business in grain and tobacco manufacturing. Levi lived in Berwangen with his wife Johanna (Hanna) née Kahn (1841-1913), the daughter of the merchant Abraham Kahn and Sarah née Steis of Affaltrach (now Obersulm). Hanna bore twelve children, eight of whom survived to adulthood: Salomon, Moritz, Sara(h), Bernhard, Gustav, Ferdinand, Natalie, and Simon. Ferdinand and Simon were cigar manufacturers; the other four brothers were merchants.

Ferdinand Hochherr (1873-1943) married twice, first to Jettchen née Ottenheimer (1878-1924) and then to Eva née Mainzer. His three children, Jakob (1904-1927), Jella (1907-1970), and Erika (born 1909), were raised in Walldorf. Erika married Franz Joseph of Mannheim, with whom she had a son, Paul (born 1938).

Simon Hochherr (1882-1944) had a son, Heinrich (alternatively Heinz, 1910-1942), with his first wife Karolina née Thanhauser (1886-1914) and a daughter, Liselotte (1920-1942), with his second wife Ella née Lieser (1886-1976). Heinrich Hochherr married Margot Baehr (died 1942), and the couple had a daughter, Susanne Carola (1939-1942).

The families of Ferdinand and Simon Hochherr moved to Amsterdam in 1938; they were denaturalized by the Nazis and lost their fortunes. After Germany conquered the Netherlands in 1940, the Hochherr family members in Holland were deported to the Westerbork concentration camp, from where Ferdinand Hochherr's family was sent to Sobibor and Simon Hochherr was sent to Auschwitz along with his daughter Liselotte, his son Heinrich, and Heinrich’s wife Margot and young daughter Susanne Carola. Liselotte had been studying in London, but had returned to the continent during the Blitz. With the exception of Salomon Hochherr, who had died in 1901, all of the children of Levi and Hanna Hochherr (Ferdinand, Simon, and all of their siblings) were murdered in the Holocaust along with many other family members.

Ella Hochherr (Simon’s second wife) was deported from Westerbork to Theresienstadt, which she survived. She immigrated to the United States in 1947. Ferdinand Hochherr’s daughter Erika Joseph escaped to Switzerland with her husband Franz and her son Paul. Erika’s sister Jella Mendel fled with her husband Ernst and their daughter Ellen Mendel to Belgium, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam before immigrating to the United States.